Something Like Consolation [Yandere Alhaitham X Reader]

Something Like Consolation [Yandere Alhaitham x Reader]

Title: Something Like Consolation [Yandere Alhaitham x Reader]

Synopsis: Follow up to this yandere Kaveh & Alhaitham imagine scenario. You don't want any comfort from Kaveh in this moment, but you don't imagine you can get any from Alhaitham, either.

I read this post from @j0succ last night about gentle lies and immediately got an idea for a line of dialogue that solved how I wanted to approach a lil follow up to this scenario. Mostly written on my phone so uhh yeah.

Word count: 1376

notes: yandere, kidnapped reader

The sight in the bathroom mirror is a far cry from what you saw only minutes before. Daintily applied makeup, finished off with carefully painted star, are ruined--streaking. Ugly. That’s what you see in the mirror. Splotches of color and red eyes and a face scrunched from bitter sadness. 

You look ugly. Mouth quivering as you fight to keep your sounds in, the blur of Alhaitham behind you, moving to shut the door. 

It’s the soft click of the bathroom door shutting that does you in. And pitiful mouth-pinched sobs that shake your chest become thick, choking cries echo off the panels of the bathroom walls. 

You aren’t hoping for Alhaitham to take you in his arms and rub your back and pull you close to his chest, and he doesn’t. Instead he reaches for one of the cloths hanging on the wall and turns the sink on, the heavy sound of water mingling with your own cries. 

He holds it out. “Wash that off, then we’ll get you changed.” 

The thought of taking that cloth makes your arms feel leaden. 

You look up at him, mouth downturned and pitiful and quivering. 

He sighs, and shakes his head. 

“I’ll wash it off for you. Stay still.” 

And you do, coughing out your cries as he dutifully dips the cloth in water again and again, scrubbing your face with the same methodical firmness that he scrubs the rest of you when he deems you too unruly to bathe yourself. 

If it were Kaveh, you think, he would be using the softest of touches. Cooing in between strokes as he gently wipes the makeup away. Kissing your cheek to calm you down. 

But you don’t want Kaveh right now. Not when he hurt you. Not when he lied to you. And if he lied about this... what else was a lie, then?

The way his fingers nimbly stroked your back when you were upset, the soft downturn of his lips when Alhaitham was verbally berating you for being so disobedient, the sweet kisses tinged with wine from a bar you’ll never be able to set foot in? 

Were they all falsehoods, too? Pretty things he created to calm you and soothe you and shut you up? 

When Alhaitham deems your face clean enough, he pulls away the cloth and drops it in a wicker hamper to be taken care of later. 

“Wait.” You reach out and touch his forearm, your voice is soft and thick. A frog in your throat, but the frog is a heavy chest and broken dreams.

He pauses, and regards you with a frustratingly neutral expression. 

Your tongue unsticks from your mouth and you bite your lip to keep sobs from trembling out, so that you can say something to make him stay. Something that might make you feel better, even, if that can be managed. 

“Kaveh…” You fight for the words. You can’t say anything awful. Not just for your own sake--you can’t possibly thrust Kaveh entirely away, not here--but because you never know when Alhaitham would rather lecture you on proper respect than acknowledge when he or Kaveh has done something awful to you.

“Kaveh lied.” That’s what you decide on. It's a fact, and surely not something that you can get in trouble for saying. "Why... why did he do that?"

Alhaitham sighs. At first, you don’t think he’ll say anything. You think he’ll remove your hand from his arm and go get you dressed and tell you to read a book and be quiet.

But he does speak. And what he says takes you aback.

“He should not have lied to you.” He talks down to you even now, the same way he does when he’s instructing you on what you should be doing that day, or how you should sit or how you should eat. For the moment, it doesn’t bother you, because he's clearly on your side. Your side!

“The moment you asked to go to the festival, he should have told you no.” 

A pause, and his voice lowers. There’s something akin to softness in his tone. Maybe you’re imagining it. Maybe you’re so desperate for sweetness that you’re placing the gentle curves of Kaveh’s voice into the man before you. 

“Letting you get your hopes up like that was very cruel of him.”

And you nod--you nod, for once, agreeing with Alhaitham, and you’re so busy looking downcast that you don’t see the pleasant surprise that flickers in his expression for a moment. 

You don’t think before you move. You just do it. You step forward and wrap your arms around his back, pressing your head against his chest, the same way you do to Kaveh when  you need comfort. Which is often. 

Alhaitham is not one for gentle embraces and soft hugs. But you hear him sigh, an annoyed, resigned thing, and you feel his hand pat your back. Just the once. He doesn’t stroke it or pull you close and cluck and coo, but there’s something comforting about the solid weight of his chest underneath you.

His hand, too, is what breaks you again. You cry pitifully into his chest, turning your face this way and that, getting his clothing wet with hot tears and probably snot that he will make you clean up later.

“I… I…” What do you want to say? What can you say? You think about your outfit, the carefully embroidered flowers, the painfully tight stitching that took you hours upon hours. An outfit you sweat and quite literally bled for, the callused little pinpricks on your finger pads as proof.

“I worked hard on my outfit,” you say, squeezing Alhaitham tighter as your voice gets thinner and pinched. “I really did.” 

You worked hard on it, because it was your ticket to something you wanted, and what was the crux? It was something for you, for once. Not Kaveh. Not Alhaitham. You were going to run around that festival and breathe in the smell from the food stands and ask them to win you prizes and enjoy the exhilarating pounding in your chest from the fireworks at the end of the night. 

Every stitch you made was one step closer to that. Only it wasn’t. Only it was for nothing at all. And now you’re sobbing in a bathroom while Alhaitham listens, letting you cry it out, and what was any of it for? 

You’re about to pull away when Alhaitham hums underneath you. 

“The embroidery was well done.”

Your breath feels like it stops, and there’s a soft, stuttering sort of gasp that escapes your mouth. Alhaitham… never compliments you. Not like that. Not in a way that you can hold onto and carry with you. 

You pull back, sniffling, wiping at your face with your hands as you stare up at him. 

“It… it was?” You gulp down your cries, and your eyes widen, and you want so much from him in this moment that you don’t know what to do.

He nods, and his hands push you away a little, holding onto your arms with his fingers wrapped around your upper arms. Not to get you away from him, but to steady you, you think. To keep you firm in his embrace, and not the other way around.

“Yes. The stitches were remarkably straight. And you managed the flowers without having to redo them.” 

You offer a tearful smile. 

“I-I read about the flower techniques in the book you gave me about sewing, after I asked for some supplies.”

And is that a smile of his own? Aimed at you, no less? It makes you swallow your tears in the same way Kaveh’s kisses might have done. 

“Good. You should always take the time to read the books I give you. It’s better for your education.”

And you, weepy thing, distraught thing, nod again. Yes, Alhaitham. You’re right, Alhaitham. 

He does pull away this time, and regards you with a look that might almost be described as pleased. 

“Come. We will get you dressed and then you can sit with me while I read.”

And you, wiping at your tears, catching a stray bit of makeup that didn’t come up with the cloth, nod again. 

You follow him out the door and pretend not to see the figure of Kaveh in the corner of your eye, watching the two of you warily.